When Tragedy Hits Close to Home

When you live in a small town, the last thing you think about is crime and tragedy. We always think that bad things happens in other cities, especially bigger ones.

By now, I am sure that you have heard about the stabbing at the University of California, Merced that happened yesterday. That school is in my town and several kids I know attend that school. When the tragedy hit the airwaves at 8 am yesterday morning, my phone went off with messages from the community college I teach at 2 miles away from UCMerced and people started calling and texting me to make sure my son, who attends the same school I teach at, and I were not involved.

While we are thankful nothing terrible happened directly at our school, our school was affected, in a manner of speaking. All day people were talking about the events and several of my students and fellow instructors knew people injured there. The two schools are closely related and very close to one another. In a relatively small town, the 6 degrees of separation is more like 3 degrees!

On the heels of the shooting at the Community College in Roseberg last month, we are often reminded at how much the world is changing. Even my small town we hear more and more sirens and we have to become more diligent of taking care of ourselves so we do not become a crime victim. Learning to protect ourselves, and now my students, is a top priority.

I think it is sad how the world, and even our towns, are changing. When we say a tragedy won’t happen here, that is becoming more and more a false statement.

We can only pray for those affected in the latest tragedy in a growing string of many. Pray for those intolerant of others and pray for our first responders too. Heck, pray for each other and hopefully we can make our world a better place again.